Wild Bastards Review - It’s One Wild Showdown
They might say the West was won, but that certainly wasn’t the case for the Wild Bastards, the deadliest posse in the galaxy. They’ve slowly been sent over to Boot Hill by the notorious Jebediah Chaste, leaving all but two standing. Luckily for them, the Drifter, a mysterious space ship heard their call, and has arrived to save the day. At least in theory, as you’ll be giving them a hand to get back to the Homestead where they should be safe from further threats.
The journey which they’ll be undertaking has a few surprises, thanks to its mix of first-person skirmishes, and board-game style exploration. I won’t lie: the structure to Wild Bastards may make things sound more complicated than they truly are, but it’ll all click in time. Arriving into a star cluster, you’ll work your way through it aiming to find the remains of one of your crew. This is probably the most relaxed part of the game, as you’ll be safe from any threats there, whilst getting the opportunity to prepare your crew for what lies ahead. On reaching a planet, you’ll need to select which members are deployed, with them grouped into pairs, as the surface gameplay being structured with a turn-based system. Each turn has you moving your teams around, each having a limited set of points available. The end goal here is typically to liberate as many supplies as possible, though this may vary in other cases.
There is some added pressure in play which I love, as you’ll only have a few turns before Chaste’s children arrive to hunt you down. They’re not the only source of bother though, as these planets are guarded by plenty of other goons, whether stationed at roadblocks or freely roaming about in packs. You can find a few tricks to help soften them up, but battle is inevitable, which brings you to the final game mode resulting in the final mode shift into first-person gunplay. These come in the form of short skirmishes where you’ll have to battle your way through a set of enemies, using the weapons and abilities of your team to even the score. Each member has their own weapon and while I found there were a few who I preferred (mostly the various gunslingers), it’s important to be familiar with how they all play as you can’t just rely on your favourites to get you through.
They’ve also got secondary abilities, which are charged by collecting certain pickups when in battle. I found most to be helpful, though some could be seen as a tad overpowered, such as that which instantly kills an enemy. Considering how tough some of the later enemies can be though, it’s more than fine in my book.
One of the big standouts with Wild Bastards is the team management. It’s no surprise to say that a team of outlaws won’t be seeing eye to eye 100% of the time, and though it comes up during the story, these falling outs are more visible when returning from a trip to a planet. Should a pair fall out, you can only include one of the two in subsequent trips to the planet. Thankfully, you can mend such conflicts by sharing a can of Beans with the pair, but unsurprisingly, they’re not a common commodity to find on your journeys. This also feeds into some of the roguelite nature of the game as well, as you’ll need to take care of the crew as you send them down. Should they be defeated in battle, then they’ll be out of play, and should the entire team suffer that fate, you’ll be forced back to the start of the cluster to try again.
I’ll admit, I’ve found these types of set ups can get you trapped should things be too tough, especially as outside of permanent upgrades, everything else you acquire during a sector is lost when restarting, or moving to the next. I certainly found myself a little stuck in a loop someways in, as I hadn’t found enough upgrades for my crew to help them survive some of the showdowns. For me, what really contributed to enjoying Wild Bastards was the presentation – particularly with the banter between members of the posse. The language strongly evokes the atmosphere of the Old West, and the voice acting for the cast helped solidify this group of outlaws who aren’t on the best of terms incredibly tightly.
The visual style of Wild Bastards also fits like a glove. The contrast between how buildings and scenery items are presented compared to characters and pickups helps ease recognition when in battle, and it also helps when in cover, which is a neat extra for battle, as it provides an important tactical advantage when outnumbered or outgunned.
Overall, I had a solid time with Wild Bastards. The overall concept in combining first person action with turn-based and roguelite mechanics was a unique way to introduce something unique to both genres. What stops it being an essential play is that the overall experience felt somewhat dragged out to me. Having such a large team size means you’re having to do a large number of runs through the game to get anywhere, and some of the later events in the story just piled up on this. I found levelling up the team to be slow, and not just because of how few and far between the upgrades were. Deep down, I feel the pacing would have been improved had there been less of the cluster exploration, or if it had more of a consequence to how things would have played out when heading down to a planet. Though for someone who is really into their roguelites, it offers something which does stand out, even if it can feel a tad too complex for its own good.
Wild Bastards was reviewed on PC with a code kindly provided by the developer.
